If the government shuts down, nothing happens, and we all move on, because it just doesn't matter. Stasis in the government is actually good for all of us. — Chamath Palihapitiya
One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt. — Lee Iacocca
Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem. — Ronald Reagan
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. — Douglas MacArthur
The public understands that the government is broke, but many still don't want to cut programs they enjoy or depend on. — Tucker Carlson
Government is waging war against the people. — L. Neil Smith
The whole government is a Ponzi scheme. — Bernard Madoff
Only in time of fear is government thrown back to its primitive and sole function of self-defense and the many interests of which it is the guardian become subordinate to that. — Jane Addams
The US government still has no idea what documents I have because encryption works — Sayings
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. — Milton Friedman
War is just one more big government program. — Joseph Sobran
The government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power. — Ted Nugent
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand. — Milton Friedman
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. — Ronald Reagan
We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended. — Harry Belafonte
Government Quotes
What my campaign is about is a political revolution - millions of people standing up and saying, enough is enough. Our government belongs to all of us, and not just the hand full of billionaires. — Bernie Sanders
Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests. — David Duke
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another. — Voltaire
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.
Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard. — Genghis Khan
It's time to make our government work for all of us... and not just the 1%. — Bernie Sanders
If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question. — Ronald Reagan
Love your country, but never trust its government.
I don't give a damn what queers do, and don't give a damn what Christians do. Just get the hell out of my way because I want to live my life and I don't want the government sucking 60% of my wages off my ass. — Alex Jones
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. — Thomas Jefferson
No responsibility of government is more fundamental than the responsibility of maintaining the highest standard of ethical behavior for those who conduct the public business. — John F. Kennedy
The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. — Alexander Hamilton
Government Aid Quotes
For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders. — Samuel Adams
All that a good government aims at... is to add no unnecessary and artificial aid to the force of its own unavoidable consequences, and to abstain from fortifying and accumulating social inequality as a means of increasing political inequalities. — James F. Cooper
Conservatives define compassion not by the number of people who recieve some kind of government aid but rather by the number of people who no longer need it. — Jack Kemp
The government will one day be corrput and filled with liars and the people will flock to the one who tells the truth.
The Original Sin which brought us to the brink of bankruptcy and dictatorship was the Federal Income Tax Amendment and its illegitimate child, Federal Aid. — Tom Anderson
The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. — Thomas Jefferson
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government. — James Madison
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself... Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.
Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it. — Will Rogers
Government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rest on capitalist assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth. — Henry Hazlitt
The business of government is to keep the government out of business - that is, unless business needs government aid. — Will Rogers
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense. — Robert Anton Wilson
Anti Government Quotes
The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government. — Edward Abbey
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded. — Baron de Montesquieu
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson
Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinkng. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.
Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other. — Thomas Jefferson
I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man. — Thomas Jefferson
I love my country, not my government. — Jesse Ventura
The government's first duty is to protect the people.
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. — Frank Herbert
Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. — Mother Teresa
The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States. — Laurence M. Keitt
In America, we have anti-nepotism laws in the federal government and in lots of state governments, because the practice of hiring relatives undermines public confidence that the government official is actually finding best person for the job. — Kathleen Clark
Bad Government Quotes
My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government. — Idi Amin
War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is.
Revolution is when you decide that for yourself. — Benjamin Franklin
Government is necessary, not because man is naturally bad... but because man is by nature more individualistic than social. — Thomas Hobbes
If there is no justice for the people, there be no peace for the government.
To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. — Richard Henry Lee
The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. — Ludwig von Mises
It was a bad idea, because I think that any government reorganization has to come in relatively small bites, or else you get indigestion. — Warren Rudman
A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them. Which would include their own government.
A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government. — Joseph Story
The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem. — Milton Friedman
To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals. — Mark Twain
A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth; for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason. — Noah Webster
Lemmings with suicide vests. It's kind of an insult to lemmings to call them lemmings, so they'd have to be more than just a lemming, because jumping to your death is not enough. — Devin Nunes
I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: 'Repeal and replace Obamacare.' That was not the mandate of the voters. If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different. — John McCain
So it was sort of an odd time because I had been hired, but my paperwork hadn't gone through. So I worked as an intern during the government shutdown, as an intern, but I already had a job. — Monica Lewinsky
Federal government shutdowns are unsettling, because you realize how little you depend on it compared to the money you give in taxes. — Roosh V
How many are worried about a government shutdown? How many are more worried about it starting back up? — Jay Leno
The political disfunction that has brought about the shutdown and now threatens default, isn't so much gridlock. It is exposing the fatal flaw in our Constitution and highly distinct system of government. In other words, it's the Constitution's fault. Something truly catastrophic was bound to happen sooner or later. — Chris Hayes
Lawmakers need to be held accountable and should feel the impact of a government shutdown just like many other Americans will. — Debbie Stabenow
You know with a bully you cannot let them slap you around, because they slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow. We are not going to be bullied. — Harry Reid
You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year. — William Jefferson Clinton
The government shutdown, we all know that's a sham. I mean, are they really going to just go to the entire Army and Navy and say, 'You're fired.' — Mike Leach
I don't want to be president. Like, "Today your job is Libya, Japan, unemployment, the government shutdown - oh, and by the way, Yemen, Syria and Jordan. That's your job today. And you'd better get it right." — Rachel Maddow
The Republican Congress is like a groundhog afraid of its shadow when a government shutdown is talked about. — Rush Limbaugh
Government shutdowns do not actually become what the term implies. Two-thirds of the government cannot shut down. We're only talking about the third of government that's discretionary spending, and even at that, nobody loses their jobs, and nobody loses their Thanksgiving turkey. The whole thing has resulted from the Republican Party thinking they bought the farm back in 1995. — Rush Limbaugh
Donald Trump was sent to Washington to drain the swamp. If the Democrat Party, as losers, can continue to thwart the winners with this never-ending threat of a government shutdown and that the Republicans are gonna get blamed for it, to me it's time to change that. It's time to blow up that whole narrative. It's time to take it on. — Rush Limbaugh
It looks like President Donald Trump is caving on his demand for a measly $1 billion in the budget for his wall on the border with Mexico. The Democrats are threatening a government shutdown. It's the same old same old, and I was hoping that Trump would throw this shutdown thing right back in their face. If they get away with it once, they're just going to keep using it. — Rush Limbaugh
The Drive-Bys want to believe that somebody like me on the radio could express difficulty, problems with the wall not going up now, the funding not being requested now, in lieu of a government shutdown. And they want you to believe that Donald Trump is in the White House, and somebody said, "You know what, Limbaugh just said you better not do this." — Rush Limbaugh
The headline in the Washington Post: "Democrats Confident They Can Block Trump's Agenda After Spending Bill Win." They think now they can stop Donald Trump's agenda for the next 3-1/2 years. They've shown how to do it. The agenda tied to the budget. The budget tied to government shutdowns. The Republicans cave at the first mention of a government shutdown; ergo, they've shut down Trump. That's what they're thinking. — Rush Limbaugh
The shutdown itself is bad but not devastating. The real danger will come up in a couple of weeks. There's legislation which is in fact routine - it's passed every year - which allows the government to borrow money, otherwise it can't function. If Congress does not approve this budget request, the government may have to default. — Noam Chomsky
[The Republican Party] for example, they do run the House of Representatives, they're a majority there, and it's the House that is essentially sending the government into shutdown and maybe default. But they won the majority of seats there because of various kinds of chicanery. They got a minority of the votes, but a majority of the seats, and they're using them to press forward an agenda which is extremely harmful to the public. — Noam Chomsky
As has been reported, and is unmistakably evident to all but the most naïve, federal employees have been ordered to exploit this crisis, to make the government shutdown as uncomfortable as they can. The White House is actively soliciting complaints from the general public on 'how the government shutdown has affected you.' These testimonies are tools sought for the propaganda kit; the better to agitate with. — Paul Kengor
We've got the government shutdown, but the beginning of Obamacare. You know what that means? You can now complain to your doctor about the government making you sick. — Jay Leno
I had to sign the paper to shut down the government. It's terrible.... [But] what the shutdown showed many, many people is the importance of the role of government. And as frustrated [as people get with] Washington, there are so many things [the government does] that are so important to people's lives every day. The panda cam, paying small businesses their loans - these are all things that shut down. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell
You need to know that a member of Congress who refuses to allow the minimum wage to come up for a vote made more money during last year's one-month government shutdown than a minimum wage worker makes in an entire year. — William J. Clinton
A government shutdown, it isn't the end of the world. It`s a bad thing. The government stops working for a few days. We cover it a lot. Polls turn against who ever made it stop working. — Ezra Klein
I liked working with Republicans. We had five pretty good years after we had that bad year in '95 that culminated in two government shutdowns. But then they really decided that they liked being in the majority for the first time in forty years, and they wanted to get some things done, and I agreed, to get things I wanted. It was all perfectly transparent. Everybody knew what they wanted and what I wanted. — William J. Clinton
I don't want a government shutdown. I don't think anyone does. — Mike Lee
What we see happening with this Republican strategy is a willingness to threaten the very foundation of the world's greatest economic power. That is a very risky proposition. — Jay Carney
The bottom line is very simple. You negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt ceiling. — Charles Schumer
I would say to the president: This is not about me. This is not about Republicans here in Congress. It's about fairness for the America people. — John Boehner
None of this is fair to you. And should it continue, it will make it more difficult to keep attracting the kind of driven, patriotic, idealist Americans to public service that our citizens deserved and that our system of self-government demands. — Barack Obama
Keeping the people's government open is not a concession to me. Keeping vital service running and hundreds of thousands of Americans on the job is not something you 'give' to the other side. — Barack Obama
It's very hard from a distance to figure out who has lost their minds. One party, the other party, all of us, the president. — Claire McCaskill
What was I elected for? ... This is a matter of core principle. — John Culberson
They've lost their minds. — Harry Reid
1995 government shutdown from GOP underestimating Clinton. — Newt Gingrich
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of government shutdown quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about government shutdown to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of government shutdown quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
_(cropped).jpg)